➤ Stomping like the 70s but with Nutter style

Dance-off Wigan fashion: The finale to the Nutter-Werth men’s collection at the Café de Paris. (Videograb from milavictoria)

❚ EXTRAVAGANT AND OVERSTATED could readily describe both the whole-body dance moves of Northern Soul fanatics, and the rock-and-roll men’s tailor Tommy Nutter, the Savile Row rebel who favoured gigantic hand-rolled lapels and Oxford bags. Last week the fashionistas attending a Café de Paris “runway” show during the London Collections for men certainly caught the uninhibited exuberance of the 1970s, as the videos here show.

An unexpected collaboration between high-street retailer Peter Werth and Nutters of Savile Row produced a show of two halves. It opened with regular jackety models in skinny pants who were upstaged by an explosion of casual soulboys in knitwear and baggies. The Café’s dancefloor suddenly became the fabled Wigan Casino, about 1975, climaxing with a jack-in-the-box dance-off to the stomping beats of Luther Ingram’s If It’s All The Same To You Babe.

+++
All very sporty for AW13 with classy fabrics and jaunty tailoring bringing a gentlemanly vibe to the look, described by designer David Mason as “Studio 54 meets Wigan Casino” (which closed in 1981). The dancers in fact turned out to be from the cast of a debut feature film titled Northern Soul, written and directed by Elaine Constantine, about two lads swept up in the subculture when they discovered uptempo American soul music. Creating a wardrobe for the film forged the alliance between the two London design houses. The current incarnation of Nutters decided it had to reach out to a ready-to-wear audience, and Peter Werth, today owned by JD Sports, is strong on working-class savvy.

THE MAN WHO GLAMORISED SAVILE ROW

❏ Tommy Nutter, the charmer and dandy whose father ran a North London caff, would no doubt have voiced some self-deprecating witticism at today’s move to widen his market. The young Nutter wanted to work for the 60s designer Michael Fish and when he bumped into him said, “Can I do something with you?” Fish said, “Don’t be silly. You’ve got your own style. Do something yourself.” Nutter died in 1992 aged 49, having designed for Elton John, David Hockney, both the Jaggers, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie (Pinups), and for three of the Beatles who wear his outfits on the Abbey Road record sleeve, likewise Jack Nicholson as The Joker in Batman, the 1989 film. Nutter shook up Savile Row by injecting softer cuts and bold fabrics into the bespoke man’s suit while respecting classic tailoring. His was the first shop on the prestigious Row to design for women such as his backer, the pop singer Cilla Black.

Tailor Timothy Everest concludes: “Tommy’s was a brand that people wanted to buy into but within that you could be an individual and I think that’s a very modern approach. That’s what bespoke is all about.”

MORE INTERESTING THAN MOST PEOPLE’S FANTASIES — THE SWINGING EIGHTIES 1978-1984

They didn’t call themselves New Romantics, or the Blitz Kids – but other people did

“I’d find people at the Blitz who were possible only in my imagination. But they were real” — Stephen Jones, hatmaker, 1983. (Illustration courtesy Iain R Webb, 1983)

“The truth about those Blitz club people was more interesting than most people’s fantasies” — Steve Dagger, pop group manager, 1983

An “invaluable website” — historian Dominic Sandbrook, 2012

➢ THE BLOG POSTS on this front page report topical updates➢ ROLL OVER THE MENU AT TOP to go deeper into the past➢ FOR NEWS & MONTH BY MONTH SEARCH, see the sidebar below➢ WELCOME to the Swinging 80s

RIP – STEVE STRANGE

◆ On Mi-soul radio on 13 Feb deejay Rusty Egan paid musical tribute to Steve Strange, his sidekick in founding the legendary Blitz Club, who died the day before: “Music says everything I could ever want to say” ... Catch up at Mixcloud

◆ During Feb 2015, Shapers of the 80s received more than 37,300 visits, its highest monthly total since launching five years ago. These came in response to our coverage of the death of Steve Strange. In the two weeks after we published tributes from Steve's friends among the former Blitz Kids, 25,000 views were counted. These have been record responses to any topic covered here

NEWS — OLD FACES, NEW MIXES FOR THE 20-TEENS

✱ Roxy Music: The Studio Albums vinyl box set out 16 March – brings together all eight of Roxy’s studio albums in a limited edition, for £149. All were mastered in 2014 for 180gm vinyl at half-speed at Abbey Road Studios. Each comes complete with original sleeve reproductions including artwork, lyrics and high-end gloss finishes

✱ Paolo Roversi shoots Rihanna for the cover of i-D’s pre-spring music issue, No 335. . . Celebrating her eighth album, R8, plus the performers, deejays and fashion designers inspired by music

✱ The latest i-D mixtape sees Sia’s Elastic Heart sit alongside the latest addition to the Ninja Tune roster, Seven Davis Jr. Mark Ronson’s uptown funk received a dubbed down rework by the one and only Benji B, kicking off the mix

✱ The Dazed February Playlist sees Rihanna team up with “some guy called Paul”, Aphex Twin drop a catalogue of new tunes and Björk share her heartbreak

✱ Who are the people set to redefine the future of style and youth culture in 2015 and beyond? Polling its global network of collaborators and influencers, the winter issue of Dazed (no longer Confused) showcases 100 cultural renegades changing the face of fashion, film, art and music. Catwalk cover star Kendall Jenner

✱ With their tour silenced by Boy George’s lack of voice Culture Club have turned to crowd-funding to bring their album Tribes to market. £12.46 pre-orders extended to the end of March through PledgeMusic, a direct-to-fan music platform, and (with luck) it’ll be released in 2015 on the band’s own label, Different Man Music. As George told the Gender Benders TV show: “I haven’t had a record deal since 1995.”

✱ Always worth dipping into The World of Princess Julia, the blog by the former 80s Blitz Kid, now nightclub deejay, critic and style icon . . . Currently “running around” between runways sussing the latest fashion pointers”

FIONA ON ‘REAL’ THEATRE…

❏ The Blitz Kids outflanked most of the 80s copyists who followed their Bowie-inspired passion for changing their look as often as possible. You’d find the follow-on generation of posers at Studio 21 on Oxford Street or the Batcave, or in a back barrel at Birmingham’s Rum Runner. After the Blitz caravanserai had moved on into the world of work, fashion designer Fiona Dealey said: “You look at these little Bat people with make-up dribbling down their necks and you feel like saying, ‘Sorry darling, not enough loose powder’. The difference was that our make-up was stage slap, Leichner not Factor. The clothes came from a costumier, Charles Fox not Flip. Dressing for the Blitz was real theatre. It wasn’t just another uniform. You felt glamorous.”

Shapers of the 80s “invaluable”

◆ Shapersofthe80s is declared an “invaluable website” by historian Dominic Sandbrook, author of the rich new cultural analysis, Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain, 1974–1979. We report how Sandbrook gives generous credit to key influencers on youth culture. His unstuffy combination of high and low life energised the BBC2 series The Seventies aired in 2012

◆ Elsewhere at Shapers of the 80s, telly don Simon Schama succinctly expresses why we should document the “irreverent freedom” that is a special aspect of life in Britain

Sade in a nutshell ♫ ♫

✱ After 2010’s Grammy Award winning Soldier Of Love LP, Sade went on to release The Ultimate Collection. The 29 tracks on two CDs included three new numbers, plus a version of Moon & The Sky featuring Jay-Z . . . In 2011 the band won a Grammy award for Best R&B Performance By A Group for the track Soldier Of Love

SPANDAU 30 YEARS ON

◆ Tony Hadley at Facebook: “My wife and I are pleased to announce the safe arrival of our beautiful baby daughter born on February 6, 2012” ... But for Spandau, Tony dropped another bombshell on ITV’s Loose Women on May 16

Archive — Many publication dates are arbitrary, so click and take pot luck!

CLICK TO SEE WHO’S ONLINE

❖ Welcome to our latest visitors from 206 countries and dependencies, recorded at Revolver Maps — not forgetting our visitor in the world’s southernmost city, Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina (54°48′S, 68°18′W), only a smidgeon further south than our readers in Río Grande and Punta Arenas... Our northernmost visitor lives at Kjøllefjord in Norway (70°56′N, 27°20′E), a nudge nearer the Pole than others in Finnmark, and at Murmansk in Russia (68°58′N, 33°05′E). A special Hello to our two visitors in Greenland!

WE RESPECT COPYRIGHT

We respect copyright, and are happy to give credit to a photographer’s work and try to seek permission first. If you own images published here and wish them to be removed, simply ask.
Reblogging is theft, so whenever you recycle any picture for your own use, please credit the photographer or artist (living or dead), and seek permission to reproduce it. Their livelihoods (and those of their families) often depend on fair dealing